HOW EXACTLY DOES THIS WORK AND WHAT IS THE COST OF THIS ? I HAVE HEARD NUMEROUS PEOPLE TALK ABOUT A PROGRAM CALLED DIALPAD. CAN ANYONE SHED SOME LIGHT ON THIS. I AM GOING TO START IN SEPT AND JUST WANT ALTERNATIVE CHEAP WAYS TO KEEP IN CONTACT WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY. THANKS.

Go to www.dialpad.com

It will explain it all to you. You down load a program and talk with a head set attached to your laptop. We pay $.39 a minute to call the states. Sometime the connection is better than other times. There is a delay, but for the most part it's great, and cheap!

Look into Vonage as well.

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Just remember that life down here is not a sprint, it's a 4 semester-long marathon.

It is not 39 cents a minutes...it's actually less than a cent per min to call back to the states. On dialup connection, dialpad sucks, or maybe just mine. Getting DSL soon so hopefully it will get better.

My mistake on the $.39 a minute. I was looking at an advertisement on the dial screen.

so how exactly do you get it to be less than a cent back to the states? do i need a certain program or anything like that? please let me know. thanks

Take a headset with a microphone with you to Dominica to plug into your laptop. You will no doubt meet someone that can help you with the set-up when you get there. You can download from the net whatever software program you'll need to use an internet phone. Speaking from the "Stateside" experience, there is a 1-2 second delay in the conversation unless you have the FAST DSL connection that is a bit more expensive. The 1-2 second delay is well worth putting up with though for the price of the call (like free). It's a good feeling to know that you can contact home anytime without having to worry about the tremendous expense of a regular phone call.

Best whishes for success on the island.

it sounds like dial pad hasnt changed since i first used it 6 years ago. That delay got annoying I think..... and not to mention the echo. I was on dial up back then, and it looks like I will be on dial up in Dominica.

The sound quality was pretty crappy back then too. I think it was even worse than talking to those big-company-outsourced customer service people in India.

I use yahoo messenger to talk to my wife back home. I was really surprised how well it works. Occasionally it has a delay (if I am doing something else on the internet) but 90 % of the time it works perfect. Its nice cause its free.

It's like Yahoo or MSN Messenger (i.e. both ends need a computer logged on to the internet), but without delay.

It's from the same people that made Kazaa, so the interface is P2P (or peer to peer). I believe that why there is less delay (no intermediate like in Yahoo or MSN).

It has worked well for me. And it's free also.